Syracuse University quits federal college-prep program Gear Up

Syracuse University is walking away from $3.75 million in federal grant money that paid for a tutoring and college-readiness program for Syracuse high school students.

SU had two years left on a six-year, $8.26 million GEAR UP grant it obtained in partnership with the school district. SU was required to match the money dollar for dollar, either in cash or services, but coming up with that match had become increasingly difficult, said Eric Spina, SU vice chancellor and provost.

SU can work with Say Yes to Education and the school district to provide the tutoring more efficiently and with less overhead than when locked into the terms of the grant, Spina said. Say Yes is a nonprofit foundation working with SU and the district to get more Syracuse students into college.

Federal GEAR UP — which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs — provided tutoring for Syracuse ninth- and 10th-graders during the day, college and financial counseling, a 2009 summer camp, college visits and other services. Syracuse School Superintendent Daniel Lowengard said SU is a good partner for the district and has pledged to continue the tutoring.

The program paid for 81 tutors, nearly 75 percent of whom were SU students. It also paid for a dozen positions on the SU payroll, which have been eliminated, including three office staff and nine people assigned to Syracuse high schools, he said.

It is a loss to see the nine jobs leave the school buildings, said Brian Nolan, district director of high schools for the school district.

“I think any time you take resources out of the buildings it’s a loss, and I think we had some tremendous people doing some really good work, and it will be a real loss for us,” Nolan said.

Spina said he was sure the staff people were doing good work, but the most critical element paid for by the grant was the tutoring, and none of the staff did that. The building staff coordinated GEAR UP services for the students, Nolan said.

A spokesman for the federal Education Department said SU was in good standing with the department and in compliance with the terms of the grant.

GEAR UP’s mission is to prepare low-income students for college. The money is spent on support for a targeted group of students, starting no later than seventh grade and following them through graduation.

Two years or so into the project, it became clear the initial GEAR UP proposal, although approved by the federal education department in 2006, did not meet the department’s expectations, Spina said.

That forced SU to remake the program about a year and a half ago, Spina said. Its focus changed from career and vocational awareness for students and families to tutoring high school students, and that met with the education department’s approval, according to Spina.

When the GEAR UP project changed, it became harder to come up with the match, either in cash or in-kind services, Spina said.

“One of the tricky things is that the partners, including the school district, had signed on essentially to a different project,” he said. “The school district was in there as a partner, but it became difficult to go to the other organizations in the community and say, ‘Come on board, here’s this existing project, we need to do X and Y,’ when they weren’t in there from the beginning.”

SU began to question whether it made sense to continue to accept the federal grant, with the match requirement, when it might be possible to provide tutoring more efficiently and in a better way for students, with existing resources, he said.

“We needed to do this in the best way possible without thinking about whether that counts as a match. Let’s just do it and not worry about the stinkin’ match, because we know what’s being done,” Spina said.